The Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) is an international forum of 29 countries and the European Union with an overarching mission of reducing the vulnerability of people worldwide to terrorism by preventing, combating, and prosecuting terrorist acts and countering incitement and recruitment to terrorism.

Our forum brings together experts and practitioners from countries and regions around the world to share experiences and expertise, and develop tools and strategies on how to counter the evolving terrorist threat. The GCTF is Co-Chaired by Morocco and the Netherlands.

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Eight GCTF Coordinating Committee Meeting

Saturday 26 September 2015

NEW YORK - United States – On 26 September 2015, the GCTF Coordinating Committee convened in New York for its eighth meeting. Members reviewed the Forum’s strategic priorities, considered ongoing and planned initiatives, and reviewed activities since the previous GCTF Coordinating Committee meeting on 6-7 May 2015 in Doha.

Key outcomes and cross-cutting themes included the following:

GCTF Members welcomed and supported the ‘‘Initiative to Address the Life Cycle of Radicalization to Violence” as a timely and necessary contribution to the ongoing global work on countering violent extremism (CVE). The initiative is designed to capture the full life cycle of radicalization, from the front end, where governments and communities are attempting to prevent susceptible individuals from being attracted to the ideologies promoted by ISIL/Da’esh as well as other terrorist groups with different ideologies, to the back end, where governments and communities need to assess the risk posed by radicalized individuals and determine how best to prosecute and/or reintegrate them into society.

GCTF Members praised the coordination effort proposed through the International Counterterrorism and CVE Capacity-Building Clearinghouse Mechanism (ICCM), financially sponsored by the United States and co-chaired by the United States and Turkey.

Members pledged to implement the new framework documents to be adopted at the sixth Ministerial Plenary Meeting of the GCTF: The Good Practices on Women and CVE and the Addendum to the Algiers Memorandum on Good Practices on Preventing and Denying the Benefits of Kidnapping for Ransom (KFR) by Terrorists.

GCTF Members acknowledged the role the three GCTF-inspired institutions – Hedayah, the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ), and the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) – play in helping members and partners operationalize the objectives of the Forum.

GCTF Members welcomed the smooth transition of the co-chairmanship of the GCTF from the United States to the Netherlands.

2016 marks the fifth anniversary of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF). On 21 September 2016, the Minister Delegate for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Morocco, Mr Nasser Bourita, and Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, Mr Bert Koenders, co-chaired the Seventh Ministerial Plenary Meeting of the GCTF in New York...

On the 21st of September the GCTF 7th Ministerial Plenary meeting will take place in New York at the Roosevelt Hotel. This will be the first Ministerial meeting under Dutch – Moroccan co-chairmanship...

Families are vital to preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE). Under the auspices of the GCTF’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group, Hedayah, the International Center of Excellence for CVE, hosted a workshop on the P/CVE roles of families. From shaping attitudes toward non-violence to serving as a “front line” actor in identifying signs of possible radicalization to violence, preventing such radicalization’s onset, and intervening in the radicalization process, families represent key, often under-utilized, partners in P/CVE efforts...

The GCTF Coordinating Committee convened for its ninth meeting in The Hague, the Netherlands, on 12 and 13 April 2016. Member States and representatives of the GCTF partner organizations reviewed the Forum’s strategic priorities, considered the ongoing and planned initiatives, and reviewed activities since the previous Coordinating Committee Meeting in New York, held on 25 September 2015...

Under the auspices of the GCTF’s Criminal Justice and Rule of Law (CJ-ROL) Working Group, the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ), the Government of Switzerland and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) hosted an expert meeting on Juvenile Justice in a Counterterrorism Context on 10-12 November 2015, in Naxxar, Malta...